Tim is in Oakland reported " At the time of writing, I am getting conflicting reports. Some say that the Unions DO support this shut down, or at least factions within them.

Also at the time of writing, the GlobalRevolution livestreamer with Occupy Wall St has been arrested. (It later turned out to be three people operating streams.)

There were over 1,000 protesters at the port in Oakland before Dawn this morning.

7:52 AM PT: They have arrested THREE cameramen already!

Lorenzo, GlobalRev Livestreamer

Jeff Smith, @dontbeaputz, OWS Press Team

One independent journalist whose name we don’t know. Pictures incoming.

7:59 AM PT: Here’s the third cameraman in NYC being arrested. His twitter handle is #Johnknefel

8:05 AM PT: Tweeted by the OWS Media team:

@OWS_Live #OccupyWallStreet Police took livestreaming equipment. We are asking for it back on livestream and being refused. (livestream.com/owsnyc) #OWS #Dec12 #D12

8:30 AM PT: POLICE ARE ANNOUNCING THAT THEY WILL USE DOGS ON THE PROTESTERS IN LONG BEACH.

They specifically warned that they may be bitten by a police dog. WATCH TIM POOLS STREAM.

What we can see there, for those who cannot watch the video, is a sea of riot police in black, many of them holding day glo orange shotguns. They’re making an order to disperse, announcing that this is an unlawful assembly.

The people who do not disperse “may be subject” to “chemical agents, impact weapons, or bites from a police dog.”

That’s a direct quote from the Long Beach Police.

8:36 AM PT: Tim pool flashed his press pass, and was told by the police that since he was not “verified press” if he did not leave, he would be arrested

It is extremely difficult for a labor union to come out in solidarity with a job action called by others during the life of a collective bargaining agreement. The Taft Hartley law specifically outlaws what are called sympathy strikes or solidarity strikes, which are strikes in support of the activity of another organization. Also, nearly all collective bargaining agreements have what are called no strike clauses which specifically prohibit strikes during the life of the contract. If the elected union officers sanctioned a strike action during the life of a contract they could subject the union to very serious fines which could bankrupt the union as well as serious jail terms for themselves.

There are exceptions to this is certain collective bargaining agreements. For example, ILWU members do not have to cross a picket line if they can substantiate that in doing so they would be in danger of life an limb. That said, even under such circumstances the elected union leadership still cannot call a strike without subjecting the union to big fines and themselves to jail terms.

The elected leadership of a union might tacitly support a sympathy strike or a solidarity strike, but to do so, they have to do it in an extremely circumspect way that would not subject the union to fines or themselves to jail terms.

On the other hand, rank and file union members (members who are not elected to union office) have considerably more freedom of action and might call a sympathy strike or a solidarity strike. When such strikes occur specifically against the recommendation of the elected union leadership the are characterized as wildcat strikes and the elected union leadership has the legal obligation to order their membership back to work or subject the union to fines or themselves to jail terms.

No, strikes are not aways against the rules. It depends on what rules you are talking about. It is both legal and protected to strike over hours, wages and working conditions in order to obtain a collective bargaining agreement.

If a collective bargaining agreement is in place in most union contracts since about 1948 there have been no strike clauses as a part of the contract, that is, an agreement to strike as long as the contract was in force. If a union goes on strike while it is under contract and has agreed not to strke then it is in violation of the contract and subject to extremely heavy fines that could in theory bankrupt the union. Elected union officials who call a strike are subject to prison terms. If it is a wildcat strike, called by a section of the membership, but not by any elected union official, union officials are generally obliged to order their members back to work under threat of prison terms and heavy fines.

so called sympathy strikes or solidarity strikes, that is strikes in support of the struggle of some other union, are specifically forbidden under the Taft Hartley provisions of the National Labor Relations Act. Unions can be fined for engaging in such strikes. Elected union officials can be imprisoned for calling such strikes or for not ordering their members back to work.

The union at Oakland is doing a good enough job fucking up its future without OWS hippie help. The days of union extortion at our West Coast ports will be wrapping up with the expansion of the Panama Canal. Asian shipments will be able to bypass Oakland and feed the U.S. interior from places like Houston where the port isn't held hostage. Miami and Charlotte are looking forward to new business too.

It sounds like you don't know how to use the internet. You're a big person, do some searches on Panama Canal expansion, labor shut-downs at Long Beach and Oakland, wages at those places... you get the idea.

Unions at those choke points fuck the middle class in this country, they don't help them. But that game is about to see some serious erosion. Mexico is expanding port capacity as well. Kansas City Southern owns a railway in Mexico (TFM) that'll bring the goods to the U.S. Why is that port being built? Because of the fuck nuts in Long Beach and Oakland.

Anybody that is around unions knows that they are and have been in a state of decline for years. The pendulum swings back and forth. It will take people realizing that standing together will start swinging the pendulum back in the other direction.
This OWS movement is starting to wake up the middle class. Who knows where it will end up?

One thing for sure the new ports are going to happen regardless of unions, not because of unions. Anytime business can be more profitable they are going to. That’s life in the real world

I see very little hippie influence in OWS, most are early middle aged and many are union members. BTW, OWS did manage to shut down the port in Houston today with the help of the gangster ridden ILA. They may be crooks, but they're our crooks.

I live in Houston. Closing down the port in Houston? LOL. At best, that's a wild exaggeration. I suppose even at Oakland, they've shut down about nothing in reality. OWS campers here range from homeless, to hippies, to disaffected 20-somethings with a need to belong, to lifelong socialists. They're few in numbers and overwhelmingly laughed at or ignored.

The point remains, Oakland as a port is well on its way to baking itself. In 10 years, it'll service a small area of California and maybe Nevada and that's about it, well, unless things change.

Well, I can't really speak directly about how successful the protest was at any port, but I did get my information from major mainstream news sources that did claim several ports had been successfully shut down. I can't recall directly what the mainstream media said about Houston specifically.

Demographically the average age of an OWS activist is 33, hardly the age of hippydom. Personally I'm 68. Most OWS activists have an undergraduate degree and some grad school. Unemployment among OWS activists is slightly higher than the national average. OWS is a tiny, tiny movement, generously not more than 200 thousand activists. On the other hand the number of socialists in the United States is even considerably smaller than that. The most generous estimates of the number of socialists in the United States put the number at about 50 thousand. So even if every socialist in the US was involved in OWS they would still be a minority of the movement and historically there has never been any particular love loss between hippies and socialists in the US and it is hard to conceive of them in the same movement.

From the statistics I've seen a very substantial minority of the US population is supportive of OWS if not active in it. In terms of my own anecdotal experience. While at occupations I have frequently been engaged by curious passers by, most of whom were not only curious, but sympathetic. Some of that support has ebbed since the evictions, because the occupations are less visible to the general public, though it is unlikely to disappear because the crises that the movement is addressing are systemic and unlikely to disappear. Leaving aside the police when they are ordered to attack us the amount of hostility I have encountered at an occupation from the general public has been miniscule by comparison.

My impression is that the London occupation is more youth oriented. I'm curious about what you mean by maladapted as it is my understanding that the crisis in the UK is far more critical than in the US, particularly with regard to youth unemployment.

Both places were essentially small groups of almost entirely 20-something near-vagrants. Not exactly "delegates" for the "99%", as they claim. One guy was really funny. His tent had writing on it from some other camping protest from 2010. At least he gets could use out of his tent.

It is my understanding that that is not exactly atypical of 20 something British youth, though it would seem that they are not especially appealing to a trade union constituency which has always been the base of British social movements such as the CND.

"OOOoooooo,, look at meeeee,,,, I'm shutting down a port,,,,, I'm proud of myself,,,, I stopped some knit caps from entering the country,,,,, ooooooooo." There are more people pissing during the halftime of the football game tonight than are interested in your port playtime.